I understand the concept of having one library that’s managed by the software. But in the end folders are the main persistent concept we have on computers especially if you have to think about things like backups and also moving a library to a new device. darktable is already pretty good because it stores adjustments in XMP files next to the image file which makes it much easier to move things around.
I hope I’ll get used to darktable but so far my dream would be to have the develop abilities of darktable with the file management of digikam.
It appears that the Ctrl+scroll behaviour limits the actual size of the module to match the current content (it will be larger when you load more content into the module). I’ve raised a PR to put this back – imo it’s better to have immediate visual feedback when changing settings like this.
In my case, the filmroll concept doesn’t match my workflow or my mental model at all. I was very frustrated, until I discovered that there are other ways to manage your picture library. As others have said, experiment with the different organization tools; it’s likely you’ll find one that makes sense to you, and then you can just ignore filmrolls.
I understand your point of view. I’ve been there too at the beginning and it was difficult to get my head around that. And I started wiht Lightroom.
However, I built my workflow around this and organizing my files, making backup of the photo but also the (lightroom) library have been set up and improved. I must also add that Lightroom has a better (for me) file management in the interface than Darktable has. you have your panel of directories where you have you photos. Also, you have a virtual folders panel where you can create simple or smart folders to arrange what you want in them.
This has helped me a lot. Now Darktable has to improve its lighttable for me for better management. And I guess this is what you are struggling with (and me too)
One very helpful thing would be there was a folder view that showed where all the files are. And maybe a feature to synchronize filmrolls with their corresponding folders so new or deleted files would be recognized.
It seems that all raw development software suffers from this. Lightroom handles it the best but is still weird , Capture One is weirder, so is darktable. Best would be digikam with darktable to process files.
Indeed, darktable is not oriented towards file management, but still, it allows to do more than deleting files. Currenty, with dt you can:
copy, move and trash files.
navigate by folders
find a lost (moved) folder
So basically, the only basic file management features missing are:
renaming files and directories (some lua scripts allow to do perform some file renaming)
copying a directory (currently, you can move all files from a directory to another directory - newly created or already existing -, which will give more or less the same result)
… and maybe a more integrated/coherent way of doing all these file/directory operations…
I totally love dt and my wish is that some day, there will be some willingness and interest to improve things with respect to file management (I’m aware of the fact that it has been a “no go” for a number of years, so I’m not holding my breath!)
Just note that almost everything you need is in your xmp files. I use folder display and actually I don’t use the database at all. I load DT with the memory option to use a virtual library each session…so it’s not necessary as you mentioned above. How ever others will need it based on their work flow perhaps…You can also use presets and auto presets to establish quick starting conditions or views
I understand what you are saying and don’t want to come across as complain too much. I just wanted to point out that for a newbie it’s hard to navigate the workflow and a lot of options aren’t very clear. And yes, I have read the docs but they don’t elaborate much on how things work in detail.
Can you elaborate a little on this? This sounds like it would suit me better. Do you still have to add folders in this mode manually or how does this work?
I just mostly use DT as a file editor so I invoke it from using the following command line to use a virtual library each time I run DT. It also uses a separate config directory separate from the normal install location for DT.
Then as I am using a 3.5 dev build I simply use the import in place button when I open DT and open the folder that I want and do my edits. As I use the virtual library and set the folder display in collections to be set to folders then any files I import in that session show as a list of folders in the collections. The best for me is that collections shows only the files I have imported and edited so its easy to go back and export them without any confusion…I am sure there are ways with ratings tags etc etc but I know I will never keep it up so I don’t try at this point.
As a background all my files are imported into the generic camera roll folder initially. I have a symbolic link to a folder named something like DT_photos where all my photos get stored. THis is just to simplify things as I use DT on 3 computers and the local folders are not on the same drives on each. So the workflow is that images are imported to camera roll. Then I sometimes do a quick cull there and then I create any folders I need in DT_photos using year-month-day_event and I move the files to those folders.
When I run DT I use the import in place on one of these folders. Then I edit the files or cull or whatever. When it comes to exporting I use a preset with syntax like this…"(FILE_FOLDER/otos/otoEdits)/(FILE_NAME)-DT" Which exports the jpg files to a mirrored folder structure automatically in a separate folder tree called PhotoEdits not photos…this will have the all exported jpg files and no xmp in exactly the same folder structure so very nice for viewing on a phone tv or any other device and it keeps them separated from originals as sometimes the original is a jpg…
This won’t work for many people but for me with multiple computers and using DT mostly for editing it is what I am doing at least for now…I also use a program called autover which is open source and it versions my xmp files so I can go back in time to any version of my xmp file ever written/created for one of my images. Then I just back up the two folder tree’s originals and edits and the xmp version archive. THats my setup…
Interesting setup. I will see if I can make something like this work for myself. I don’t even use dt for importing but do that with Digikam. I also do all my tagging and most of culling there.
You should be able to make that work then…use DK for all your DAM stuff…I am just not 100% sure how they share or read xmp…ie if DK modifies the xmp will that corrupt DT and the reverse…someone did comment a while back and I think they were getting them to work together…
The goal of Darktable or photo managing software is to manage only photos that you want to work on. So synchronizing a whole folder with files that are foreign to your work is not welcome. The goal is clearly to reduce the amount of photo you want to keep and focus only on them. This is a very specific type of work dedicated to one task.
May be this kind is not what you need. And that’s completely fine.
When working with Darktable and such software (lightroom being the other one), it’s to focus only on editing photos, not managing the files. Managing files is the job of other software that are best for that.
And this is how I’m doing today, by separating file management and photo editing. (at the same time it gives me peace of mind that everything works fine). The big struggle to get around is that with darktable and such, you are managing photos, assets, NOT files.
I can completely feel you on that. I had my struggles when I started with Lightroom, and I have new struggles now I’m trying to move to Darktable. That’s one reason my path to discover is to make videos on how to go from Lightroom to Darktable (they are in french, not english). Just my way and if it can help other people, even better.
What I can say is that Darktable concept is built on the same premises than Lightroom, and professional uses, that is focusing on one task, not multiple. And I think a lot of resources on the net forget to mention this for newcomers.
As newcomers, it’s obvious you think of file first and want to work from there. Where you should consider this as 2 separate hat on your head. First you are a file manager, managing all files on your network (your computer, but also mobile devices, backup drives etc…). And when you take the photo editor hat, then you only work on photos you import, and focus only on this.
This means as file manager, you have to find a way to have your file ready to be used by someone / something else (ie your photo editor role). Once I got this clear, I was able to enjoy both role and enjoy photo editing
Hope this helps a bit
This thread gives me the opportunity for my next video to explain this concept.
I understand the concept of having an internal database to store the edits and metadata. I therefore think I understand the purpose of the ‘collect’ and ‘filmroll’ paradigm. I pretty much always use the folder view to browse my files. I also have the option enabled to store XMP’s as sidecar files, sort-of bypassing the database idea. However… in conjunction with this, I really wish I could cut away the need for the filmroll step. Just give me direct access to my folders and let me see the pictures
The thing I find particularly annoying: I have folder which is regularly updated with new images (test cases for development issues and PlayRaws). I need to reimport these folders every time I make a change to include the new files (unless I am missing something and dt can do this automatically…).
If this is true, then darktable should definitely not require filmrolls. Filmrolls is by definition a way to manage a collection of files into logical groups.
and if it can help other people, even better.